In recent weeks, Parliament has been busy debating the issue of the death penalty. Each of the 60 members, or those present, may, if he or she desires,vote according to conscience and ignore the party line after what appears to be a vigorous and emotional debate. Now the vote is in, the death penalty is retained, so what's next?

It must be well over 20 years that no one has been hung in Jamaica in keeping with a judicial sentence to suffer death in the manner prescribed by law. Many years ago, the sentence of death could be carried out on a convicted murderer who has exhausted ALL his or her appeal processes after many years of going through them. In recent years, however, the Privy Council - Jamaica's highest court, which is based in England and utilises mostly white Englishmen, has ruled that for the death penalty to be executed, all the appeal process must be completed by five years.

The case of Pratt & Morgan v R supports the point. Due to the inefficiency of the police and judicial systems, it is almost impossible to complete the process within the time frame prescribed by the Privy Council and, of course, one of the options for the Government is to amend the relevant laws to impose a higher time period.

Homicide problem

For those who want to enter the debate, and everyone should, it must be noted that Jamaica has a problem with homicide as in a good year the figure is under 1,000.

I have not seen any statistics that provides information about the classification of murders to the extent that one can say what percentage of all murderers, if convicted, would attract a sentence of death or imprisonment for life pursuant to section 3(1)(a) of the Offences Against the Person Act (hereinafter called "the Act") or what percentage would, if convicted, be sentenced to imprisonment for life, or such other term, as the court thinks fit but not less than fifteen years.

Section 2 of the Act provides that murders that will attract the death penalty are those of members of the security force, correctional officers, justices of the peace and judicial officers all acting in the execution of their duties, or someone assisting those persons, as well as witnesses in criminal matters or concluded civil cause or jurors. My estimation is that this category accounts for about 100 murders per year.

The other category that attracts the death penalty includes murders committed by persons in the course or furtherance of robbery, burglary or housebreaking, arson of a dwelling house or any sexual offence. In this category, I would estimate the murders islandwide to be about 200 per year. Another category is any murder committed where money or value passes, or intends to be passed, or is promised, or murder committed by a person in the course or furtherance of any violence or action calculated to create fear in the public.

I would not expect this category to account for more than 50 murders per year. To the best of my knowledge, in recent years in Jamaica the murder rate has exceeded 1,000 per year.

Where the sentence of death is pronounced, the person is to suffer death in the manner authorised by law and the sentence is usually executed pursuant to the practice, which is by hanging.

My view is that the vast majority of murders committed in Jamaica would not attract the death penalty so what is the fuss about in Parliament. It is obvious that Parliamentary time could be better spent debating and discussing ways to improve the investigative arm of the police, improving the resources and forensic skills of the police force and significantly improve the efficiency of the Courts system. Our Parliamentarians must understand that the first step is to arrest the person who commits the crime.

Secondly, the system must be able to give that person a fair trial within a very reasonable time that would allow the person to exhaust all appeal processes and it is only at the end of that process that we can talk about the death penalty. The focus must be on the criminal and judicial processes.

Keith N. Bishop is an attorney-at-law and partner in the firm of Bishop & Fullerton. He may be contacted by email at knbishop@gmail.com and by text at 779-2871.